Staying in the Groove

A friend of ours took home an old turntable that he had found in his dad's basement. He wanted to know how to hook it up to his stereo. I explained the process to him and then said, "For now, only use junk records to test it. Don't try playing anything nice until you get a new stylus." He looked at me like I was from Mars.

He replied, "My dad never ever played it, Brent. It's like brand-new." I assured him that he knew more about its history than I did, and I didn't argue. I still stand by my statement, though. If you found an old fork in your dad's basement, would you immediately use it to eat dinner, or would you make sure it was clean first?

Remembering that got me thinking about the needle on my turntable. When had I last replaced it? The earliest would have been in 2013... seven years ago? It was time for me to get a new stylus. I found a replacement on Amazon.

Does it make a difference? Holy cow, I was a little embarrassed that I had let my old needle get so worn out. Even my scratchy, thrift store records sounded better. 

Like this one. I was pumped to find an original release of Pet Sounds at Goodwill, even if the album's cover was water damaged. BTW, Rolling Stone just ranked Pet Sounds as the 2nd Best Album of All Time this morning. How's that for timing?

I've had Pet Sounds on CD since 1990, but I hadn't heard it on vinyl. 

Sure, there are some pops and clicks to be heard, but they don't overpower the music. The problem was a skip in the first song, "Wouldn't it Be Nice." Brian Wilson sings, And after having 'skip!' together... I tried vacuum cleaning and the wood glue method, but that skip! was still there. So frustrating. 

I Googled "How to fix a scratched record" and spotted something that I hadn't heard of: using a wooden toothpick to fix a skip. The idea is to use the toothpick to physically clear out the debris that the cleaning couldn't. A (soft) wood toothpick would probably do the least damage to the vinyl. 

Here's my school turntable. The Pioneer PL-4 works, but it's not going to win awards. I pulled it out of storage to try the toothpick fix. This year my classroom is all but empty due to Covid-19 cleaning protocols. 

This is the little amp that I use to power a pair of headphones. 

I'm not quick enough to see the exact place that causes the stylus to jump. I need to slow the record down to spot the damage. I unplugged the turntable and spun the record by hand until I reached the correct scratch. You can still hear the music even if the turntable has no power.

My eyes aren't what the used to be, either. To have any chance of seeing what I was doing, I had to use a the smaller, more powerful lens at the bottom of my magnifying glass.

The record appeared to be clean, and the scratch wasn't very big, but you can see some of the crud I removed with the toothpick. (Full disclosure: this picture is of Carole King's Tapestry. It also has a skip.)

I cleaned the gunk off the record's surface and gave it a spin. Hey! That worked! I could hear where the skip had been, but I could also hear "Wouldn't it be Nice" all the way through. That's a bit of a relief. 

Disclaimers all over the place. This toothpick fix worked, but I would only try it you've cleaned your vinyl as well as you can, and the remaining skip is driving you nuts. If you are worried that the toothpick could do more damage, then don't use it. My guess is that you will always hear the damage in this spot, even if the needle stays in the groove. I am also sure this will not work for all skips. Somethings just cannot be repaired. Sometimes you just have to walk away.

Still, it was a lot of fun to try this fix. Armed with a new stylus and a handful of toothpicks, I'm ready to battle any vinyl scratches that come my way.

Story Material: Poor Ron.

Char wore a Hermione Granger shirt on the first day of school. It's hard to see under her tie. 

Charlotte saw another girl wearing this shirt when we on vacation in January. She told me how funny the design was,"Dad, it's like, 'HERMIONE!'," Char snapped out an imaginary wand, "In action!" Char liked that Mrs. Norris the cat and Mrs. Mcgonagall were included. "But why was Professor Lockhart even on there? That's hilarious!"

We searched Google images when we got home, and found the shirt for sale on Kohls.com. Here's the whole Hermione design. 

Kohls sells other Potter character tees in the same style, and we wanted to see what they looked like.

For his shirt, Harry stands defiantly with the Sword of Gryffindor on his shoulder and with Hagrid and Professor Dumbledore at his back. A worried Dobby is there, too.

Draco is looking menacing while his dad, Crabbe and Goyle, and Professor Snape all lear at us for being muggles. Even the Hand of Glory mocks us.

Now let's see Ron's design. What?! The other shirts make their characters look cool. How come Ron has to make the ewww-face while wearing earmuffs? Hermione waves a wand, Harry has a sword, Draco holds his Nimbus 2001, and Ron is stuck clutching a crying mandrake? Ginny looks embarrassed for him, and Fred and George aren't supportive. They can't believe they're stuck on a Ron shirt. Instead of the flying car he flew to school, Ron gets the Howler his mum wrote. 

This is no shirt for a guy who chases down Hermione's attackers, "Hey! That's my girlfriend, you numpties!"

Even Neville got a design that makes him look tough.

Poor Ron. That's no way to treat a mate.

Vacuuming in the Car AKA: It's What You Don't See That Matters

Here's what the seat, center console, and the shifter in our RAV4 looked like this morning. You might not think that's a big deal, but it is. 

Sunday was the first day without rain for a week. I took the family for a drive around the neighborhood with the windows down. Ellie seemed to enjoy it as much as we did. Then, about three miles from home, our dog got sick.

What you don't see in that above picture is the two full cups of partially digested food that our dog threw up on my seat, arm rest, and shifter. She filled the space between the car seat and the console. It was all over the parking brake lever and my shorts. There isn't a good place in a car for a dog to vomit, but this might have been the worst place for me.

When we got home I changed my clothes and grabbed the shop vacuum. I tried moving the car seat forward and backwards, but there was no way to get to all of the mess. I disconnected the car's battery, disconnected the airbag sensor wires under the seat, and then removed the seat from the car.

We bought a SpotBot Portable Carpet Cleaner about ten years ago, and that has been one of our best investments.

After using our hands to scoop, the wet/dry vacuum, and spray cleaners with paper towels, Daphne used the SpotBot's hose attachment to clean the carpet and the seat's upholstery. I left the seat to dry in the sun for an hour before bolting the seat back in its place.

I have heard that charcoal absorbs odors, so I placed an open bag of Kingsford briquettes in the car. I used this same trick when Char got sick in the back seat after a night at Chuck E. Cheese. I couldn't smell anything except cleaner this morning. I think charcoal helps. 

That wasn't how we wanted to spend our Sunday afternoon, but in the end, Ellie is fine and the car is fine. 

But here's the kicker. It's the one thing I'm proud of. I did get mad. I did get frustrated. But I didn't swear in front the girls. Instead, I broke out into short bursts of language, "Ahhh!" "You have got to be... " "C'mon!" and "Well! That happened!"

Sometimes what you don't hear also matters. 

Vacuuming in the Basement AKA: Cleaning Vinyl Records

I once overheard a conversation between a father and his son standing at the record bins at Half Price Books. The son appeared to be in his upper 20s, and the dad looked like me.

"Why in the 'blank' are you buying that on record? They have the same thing on CD right over there!"
"Records sound better, Dad."
"Like 'blank' they do. You didn't have to grow up with Snap, Crackle, and Pop like I did. I say throw all those 'blank' things in the fire!"
The son shook his head and kept flipping through the LPs.

Actually, I think they are both right.

Records, if they are clean, cared for, and played on a decent stereo system, do sound amazing. Records that are warped, dirty, or scratched can sound terrible. CDs require little maintenance, and their sound is crisp and clear. It can be argued that because the music on a CD has been compressed and digitized and into 1s and 0s, there is a loss of warmth and depth.

YouTube videos, online music streaming, and MP3s also have their merits, but I prefer things that I can hold.

Shopping at Goodwill for records is much different than shopping at a record store or online. Sometimes I get surprised, but I expect the pickings to be slim and the LPs to be cheap and dirty. I like the cheap, and today's post is about showing Charlotte how I deal with the dirty. 

I chose the Seekers Seen in Green from 1968. I haven't heard of this band, but the psychedelic cover is interesting. My guess is that this is a folk group. I resisted the urge to use my phone to look them up. I like the surprise of dropping the needle and hearing the music on my stereo for the first time. 

I also like that it's a gatefold cover (it opens like a book). Gatefold sleeves often have more artwork. From the look of their instruments, these guys have to be a folk group. 

My first step is to remove that bothersome price sticker(s). I'll use my fingernail to pry up the left corner. Sometimes I'm lucky, and the sticker will peel right off. If that doesn't work, then I make myself stop. That's hard to do, but if I keep working at it, I'll dig or scratch grooves into the surface of the cover. Worse, I could pull up the sticker and the artwork it's stuck to. Instead of a price tag, there will be a fuzzy, white patch. Those marks bug me more than the sticker does.

I have had good luck with using a hair dryer. The idea is to heat up the adhesive layer so it will peel back easier. REMOVE THE RECORD from the sleeve! You don't want the heat to damage or warp the vinyl. I set the hair dryer to "high" and aim it directly at the sticker about an inch from the surface. I usually heat the sticker for about 15 seconds.

It works best to start on the left side of the sticker, but I'll start on the right to show why. The left side began to come up, but then the glue started to regain its grip. I used dryer for another 15 seconds.

If you start on the right side of the sticker, inevitably it will peel around the at middle "tail" (says "good"), and you have to risk scratching the sleeve again by getting the tail to lift up. You have a better chance of getting the sticker off all at once by starting on the left.  

I used the dryer one more time, and this time pulled from the left. The sticker is now off. Any adhesive residue left can sometimes be lifted off by using the sticker itself to dab at the surface.

I've been using a Discwasher brush like this since high school, and I still use it to remove dust and hair when I have a record on the turntable. It's fine for new and gently used vinyl.

Another reason I picked the Seen in Green LP was that it wasn't scratched up. It was really dirty. It's hard to see in this picture, but it is covered with debris. I rather not run my stylus through that.

BTW, if you want to clean your records inexpensively, "Vinyl Me, Please" published a fun article reference article called "10 Cheap Vinyl Accessories That Can Boost Your Vinyl Game. "

If you want to deep dive into vinyl record cleaning, you will find hundreds of opinions online. My preferred method is to use Squeaky Clean Vinyl's MK-III RCM 3D Printed Record Cleaner. It works with 12", 10", and 7" records. And no, I do not work for the company. 

You do need to supply your own wet/dry vacuum. Here I have the hose attached.

Again, the arguments over what is the best cleaning formula are a mile long. I use what was recommended by Vinyl Me, Please for my cleaning formula. It's simple and it works for me. (edit: I use 91% isopropyl, and I just went to Wallgreens to buy some more... I had no idea it had become a hard-to-find item. I have some at work I'll bring home and use sparingly.)

The "For Records" spray bottle contains the cleaner; the "rinse" spray bottle contains distilled water.

The label cover is also a handle that turns the platter. Sometimes a label will not be perfectly centered and parts of it are exposed. You have to watch that you don't get that area wet. What can I say? It's an imperfect world. 

I rotate the plater and spray cleaner on the record. Then I use the blue, cleaner brush to smooth the fluid over the surface. I let it sit like that for a minute.

I then swing the arm over the vinyl and fire up the vacuum. I turn the record as the fluid and debris are vacuumed up and away from the vinyl's surface. Next I repeat that process using the "rinse" water. 

Any remaining water droplets air dry very quickly. Time to flip the record over and do it again.

Hey, that looks much better. Shiny.

How does it sound? I think the best way to judge a cleaning is to listen between the songs and see how many imperfections you can hear when it should be silent. Here's the end of "Sad Cloud" and the beginning of "Feeling Groovy." (Very folk.)

If the LP is a keeper or a gift, I'll put the album in a protective cover and the record in a new, paper sleeve.

Finished!

Cleaning a dirty record like this does wonders, but it doesn't work miracles. You can't vacuum up a scratch. I tried; it doesn't work. 

I have also used wood glue to clean really grungy records, and that is effective, but pulling the glue off creates so much static electricity that record practically hovers over the turntable and sounds noisier than it is. This wet/ vacuum method removes that static and the static that can make new records sound noisy. 

BTW, I've listened to side one of Seen in Green, and I can't say that it is in my lane. That doesn't bother me. I get more satisfaction out of fixing something forgotten than I do of owning it. If I don't enjoy side two, I can use it as wall art or put the LP in my donation box and give it back to Goodwill.

Unless you want it. Let me know. 

Play Date!

Our neighbors were babysitting their daughter's golden retriever puppy last weekend, and they were more than willing to hand him over the fence for some playtime. Ellie was so excited to get to play with another dog.

Speaking of playtime, my buddy Robert sent us a picture of his cat Cooper trying to play along with the cats in the movie Aristocats.

That's awesome. 

Thrifting During COVID-19

I love thrift stores, but the idea of being around anything that had been previously owned became horrifying when COVID-19 began to spread. For months the only businesses I went inside were our two grocery stores and one gas station. I masked up and got in and out as fast as possible.

Then Goodwill announced that they were reopening a few stores in mid-May. One of those stores is less than five miles from our house. That's when I heard the sirens' song. I fought the urge to answer for weeks until the DVD player in the garage burned out.

I formed a plan. All donations were quarantined for 72 hours before they were handed by masked employees. If I did find a DVD player, then it should be safe. Also, we had wet-wipes. I would pay with single dollar bills and let the store keep the change. Less personal contact that way.

Since opening, all Goodwill stores require customers to wear masks. They might have been the first around here to do so. 

A touchless entry is nice.

The store is huge, and the factory-high ceiling seems like it would help with ventilation.

I was still nervous. I made a bee-line to the electronics section. They had one DVD player for sale. I plugged it into the wall socket. It turned on. The tray moved in and out. I gave the clerk seven dollar bills. I then fled the store. I scrubbed my hands with the sanitizer in my car. I drove my prize home in triumph.

I gave player a wet-wipe bath in the garage, and then let it air-dry while I went upstairs to take a nap. The stress was exhausting. 

Turns out I bought a dud. The player couldn't play dual-layer DVDs. It kept restarting the movie half-way through. So frustrating.

I did, however, break the seal. I stopped by Goodwill a few more times during the summer. It's not the same, though. I move much quicker. I avoid aisles with people in them. I look for vintage t-shirts, but I'll leave if someone is on the opposite side of the clothing rack.

If I find something to buy and the checkout line is long, then I put it back. The less I touch the better. I just look at what's on the shelves; I don't poke around to see what might be hiding underneath that curling iron.

One thing that will make me break my no contact rule is vinyl records. At this store the LPs are typically found on a shelf unit with the movies and CDs.

However, somebody placed a pile of ten records on a shelf across the store near the books and puzzles.

I took a knee and flipped through the stacks. Let's see... religious album, religious album, religious album, religious album, religious album, what?? Is that a skull? Hey! It's the Blue Oyster Cult! 

That's not exactly the company you'd expect to find the BOC in.

Some Enchanted Evening is their live album from 1978. Side 2 is killer: "Kick Out The Jams," “Godzilla," "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," and "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place." That's a heck of a set for 89 cents.

I didn't notice until I got home that there was a stowaway. A second record was hiding in the sleeve. 

I went back to see if the Tarkus artwork was there, but no dice. ELP has probably been roommates with the BOC for decades. A generic sleeve will have to do.

Not that I plan on spending much time with Emerson, Lake, & Palmer. I just don't like seeing a record being needlessly scratched. (More on that later.)

I could make ten trips to a thrift store and walk out empty-handed, but it is this type of thing that keeps me coming back... masked and ready.